Skift Take

There are multiple travel apps that attempt to integrate social media and destination content, but tourism boards are in a better position to leverage the tools given their established authority and influence — and relatively deep pockets.

— Samantha Shankman

Online travel agencies, booking sites, airlines, and hotels have begun to realize that social and sharing features are key to spreading the word about their services and building a brand identity.

Only a select few U.S. city and state tourism boards have embraced the opportunities to engage with travelers, while others who have been slow on the uptake are attempting to catch up.

The tourism board’s website Visit Philly is one of the top 10 destination-marketing organizations on Pinterest in terms of followers and adds curated guides of places to visit on Foursquare lists.

So how’s all this effort working out for Philadephia?

“In a recent survey of 1,000 fans and followers, 73% of respondents said they attended an event or visited an attraction they learned about through one of our social media properties,” reports GPTMC CEO Meryl Levitz.

“A recent report by the U.S. Travel Association shows that overnight visitation to Greater Philadelphia has grown six times faster than the national average since 1997,” adds a GPTMC spokesperson.

The site launched in early November with features like The Experience Builder and MyLA that allow tourists and locals to build lists of activities and places to visit and share them on Facebook or Twitter. Celebrities can create their own “My LA to Z” lists to share their favorite spots in the city. Not to mention, hotel bookings and OpenTable reservations are possible directly through the site.

VP of Media & Entertainment Michael K. Brown at the digital agency Digitaria, which designed the site, explained the bottom-up approach it used to provide tourists with local insight and the ability to enjoy the city like a resident, “Even though discoverLosAngeles.com is a travel website targeted at people outside of the city, we decided to flip it and approach it by building a site that would be a resource for people living in L.A., and by nature would become valuable to tourists as well.”

Tourism boards outside the U.S. are also doing a great job of engaging travelers and residents on social media platform, blogs, and Twitter. Travelers can share their Instagram photos on The Montreal Buzz, a blog for Tourisme Montreal, or download a free travel app from Tourism Australia.

Have you seen any impressive social efforts from tourism boards at the destinations you’ve visisted? Let us know in the comments.